Building bridges with Bihar Chief Minister has become the top priority for Congress

Building bridges with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has become the top priority for Congress political managers after DMK withdrew support from UPA on March 19. On March 25, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the BRICS summit in Durban, South Afric

Building bridges with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has become the top priority for Congress political managers after DMK withdrew support from UPA on March 19. On March 25, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, sent a message through an independent channel to Nitish. The Centre, according to his message, was ready to change the criteria that defined backward states within two months. On March 26, several media organisations reported that government sources had confirmed that Bihar (and some other states) would be granted special status soon. Political circumstances-Nitish's 20 MPs can potentially save a tottering UPA from early demise-had ensured that what was a vaguely defined promise in the Union Budget of February 28 had become a firm commitment just three weeks later.

Nitish Kumar.

Bridging the gap

Congress's hope of snaring Nitish is not unreasonable. On September 19 last year, he publicly said he would support any formation at the Centre that granted special status (and the significant financial resources it would entail) to Bihar. His successful Adhikar rally in Delhi on March 18 reiterated that demand. Nitish has also been firm that he would snap ties with his current coalition partner, BJP, if the latter declares Narendra Modi its prime ministerial candidate.

Meanwhile, BJP has moved quickly to cement bridges with its ally of 17 years. On the evening of his March 18 rally, Nitish was invited to dinner with senior party leader Arun Jaitley. The two share an excellent rapport and sources say BJP has deputed Jaitley to persuade Nitish about Modi's potential candidature, should that materialise. "He would accept anyone from BJP but Modi," says a JD(U) MP. If there is one non-negotiable issue for the otherwise flexible Nitish, it is Modi's candidature as NDA's prime minister.

In a matter of weeks, Nitish has become the most wooed politician in India. But he is not likely to make a hasty decision. A senior party member says Nitish always follows one guiding principle: Cross the bridge when you come to it. The actual announcement on special status has not been made, a point driven home by senior JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav who on March 26 said he had only read about it in newspapers. BJP's decision on 'Modi or not' may also be some months away.

Even as Congress and BJP go all out to woo him, Nitish is in a relaxed frame of mind. In the midst of his hectic sojourn to Delhi, he spared three-and-a-half long hours to listen to classical singer Kishori Amonkar at the first NKP Salve memorial concert co-organised by his lieutenant in Delhi, N.K. Singh. Even his closest aides were taken by surprise.

Nitish's decision will be guided by a single consideration: How best to consolidate his hold over Bihar. An electrical engineer by training, the Chief Minister is known to be highly systematic and organised in his thinking. His primary demand of special status for Bihar is more than a political gimmick. He needs extra financial resources to sustain Bihar's double-digit growth.

The state's growth has been driven largely by government expenditure-in roads, housing, education and health-and not by private investment, which has continued to shy away from a landlocked state with no significant natural resources. Nitish has, for some time, been irritated with the fact that his government has to spend at least Rs 7,000 crore of its own funds every year on implementing Centrally sponsored schemes. JD(U) MP N.K. Singh recalls an incident from the Bihar Conclave in February 2012 when Nitish attended a session moderated by Singh with Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Ahluwalia and economist Amartya Sen as panellists. Nitish hand wrote a short note to the moderator asking him to ask Ahluwalia two questions: First, why did the Centre not fund entirely its own schemes, and second, why did it force state governments to implement certain welfare programmes or particular subsidies when their priorities could be different. "That shows what his thinking is," says Singh.

Nitish is acutely aware that he draws his popularity and legitimacy in Bihar because he rescued the state from the misgovernance of RJD's rule between 1990 and 2005. He has built a coalition of voters that extends beyond the old caste and communal divides, a constituency whose highest priority is development. Bihar still ranks at the bottom of Indian states on key parameters such as per capita income and human development indicators. The Centre gives special status to states only on the basis of geography-hill states or remote states in the North-east. Apart from extra funding from the Centre, these states are allowed to give special tax incentives to private investors. For the next stage of Bihar's growth story, Nitish needs both the sops. He will get them when UPA changes the criteria for backwardness to socio-economic parameters rather than geography.

Nitish with Manmohan Singh in Delhi in July 2012.

Eye on Elections

While Nitish has diminished the importance of old caste and communal equations, he has not done away with them altogether. The politician in him is aware that he needs to get his coalition right if he has to maximise the number of seats for JD(U) in the next Lok Sabha elections. In terms of vote share, the JD(U)-BJP alliance is a clear winner. The combined vote share of almost 40 per cent that the alliance received in the 2010 Assembly elections is enough to win at least 80 per cent of the seats on offer in Bihar. If he breaks away from BJP, Nitish will lose a potential 16-17 per cent vote that BJP polled in the 2010 elections. Crucially, he may lose the votes of the upper castes, a significant minority, who tend to vote for BJP and have in recent times grown disillusioned with Nitish's government. That is one reason why Nitish would be reluctant to leave BJP out. Should Nitish split with BJP, he will have to try and make up for this loss by consolidating the 16 per cent Muslim votes in his favour. As long as Nitish is with BJP, Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD will continue to garner a section of the minority votes.

Congress brings much less than BJP to the table for Nitish in terms of votes. In the last Assembly elections, Congress managed to win only 8 per cent. The chief reason for Nitish tying up with Congress would be to prevent a consolidation of opposition forces-an RJD-LJP-Congress combine could defeat JD(U) if it were to fight alone. Nitish definitely wants to undercut Lalu and the perception that the RJD chief is gradually gaining ground in Bihar. Having launched a Parivartan Yatra against Nitish's Adhikar Yatra and BJP's proposed Hunkaar Rally, Lalu has attracted large crowds in various public meetings. State intelligence sources confirm that Lalu has, of late, been drawing crowds of over 10,000 people at his rallies, compared to around 2,000 five years ago.

Nitish (Centre) with BJP leaders in Chapra in October 2011.

Drawback in Congress ties

However, partnering with Congress could have other drawbacks. According to a close Nitish aide, he is unwilling to share UPA's tainted reputation in the Lok Sabha elections. Also the JD(U)'s cadres, which grew out of staunch anti-Congressism during the JP movement and thereafter, will find it difficult to be in alliance with a party they habitually oppose. The Chief Minister is likely to take advice from close aides like RCP Singh and N.K. Singh, both former bureaucrats-turned-politicians, and veteran JD(U) leaders like Sharad Yadav and Vashisht Narayan Singh before he makes a final decision.

What seems certain is that Nitish is in no mood to pitch himself as a prime ministerial aspirant in the next elections. According to a senior party MP, Nitish often talks about chief ministers who aspire for the PM's chair and are then left unfit to even be a chief minister, an obvious reference to H.D. Deve Gowda. For now, he would rather play kingmaker than become king.

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